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His thumb brushes over my lip. It’s been slightly swollen since our kiss at the feast. I haven’t given it a second thought—how could I in the turmoil of all that’s happened? But I remember with glaring clarity the way his teeth scraped my lip, the moment of pain, the hint of copper.
Oh Saints.
His smile is full of understanding. “This is the way it was meant to be. You’re meant to be mine, Vesper, as I’m meant to be yours. The two of us together, protecting the Illuminated Kingdom for eternity. We’ll be more than saints. We’ll be like gods.”
Meigas do not believe in gods. Power, we believe, is wielded for protection and for good, not to rule over the rest of existence. Galvin has talked himself into believing this future is a beautiful dream. But it is a nightmare.
“The change will be difficult,” he says. His arm curls slowly around me while he speaks, and I freeze. “You’ll grow cold. And then the hunger will come. Hunger for blood. Hunger for life. It’s the price of immortality.”
He traps me against him. And he reaches for my scythe. I try to hold tight to it, gritting my teeth as he snatches it from my hands with his inhuman strength. “There’s no point, darling. That’s the beauty of the bloodbond. You and I—we are completely unable to hurt each other. I am the only person you can trust utterly. I alone will never hurt you.”
I know too well that there are many ways to hurt a person besides physical harm.
It was so easy for him to disarm me. He lets the scythe fall dormant behind him, its metal blade empty of the hopeful lavender glow.
“I will never love you,” I seethe, letting a savage smile curl on my lips. “Haven’t you heard? My heart was broken by magic years ago. I’m heartless. But even if I could, I’d hate you for the rest of our existence for what you did tonight, what you did to me.”
His lip curls, fury boiling in the white-covered eyes. He tears open the top buttons of his military uniform. He takes my free hand and forces it against his bare chest, just over where his heart should be.
“Do you feel that?” he whispers. His breath skirts over my cheeks. I hate my reaction to him, the way my body, my very soul wants him even now. There is no beat beneath my fingertips. No warmth to his flesh. Whatever he did to himself to turn him into this creature, it stopped his heart, turned him to living stone. “I’m heartless too. We’re alike. You and I, we belong together.” He lets his forehead fall against mine. “You feel it, Vesper, darling. I know you do.”
And I do. Saints, I do.
The terrible truth of his words dawns on my broken heart. I feel the sameness in us, twin monsters, unnatural heartless nightmares.
He has ruined me.
“Now, I’m very sorry for this, but tonight promises to be very dangerous. I can’t have you running about the school putting yourself in danger.”
Or stopping him.
“I want to show you something very special.” His words make my skin crawl.
Galvin grips me tightly and steers me toward the wall opposite the bed. There, resting on a wooden stand, is a long, polished box. It lies atop its stand like any ordinary chest, half obscured in the shadows of the bedroom. But its shape is unmistakable. Black-stained wood gleams in the flickering light of the fireplace, lighting the elaborate scrollwork and anguished faces of fiends carved into it. On the lid are deeply etched words, elegant but with something sinister to their curves and angles. Memento vivere. Memento mori.
“What is that?” I breathe. Though I know exactly what it is.
“A safe place,” Galvin whispers.
Run, my instincts scream at me. For Saints’ sake, run!
I lunge toward the door, but Galvin’s grip is firm. He yanks me back. I fight, but I have nothing to defend myself. My scythe is on the floor by the bed, painfully out of reach. I scream and fight against Galvin’s grip, but a vicious smile widens on his lips the more I fight him.
“You are a delight, Vesper Fontaine. That spark, that fury. We’re going to have such fun.”
And then he hoists me into the air. I scream and fight, thrashing against him, punching the hard muscles of his back, but still he marches toward the coffin and kicks its lid open. True terror seizes me now. I can’t reach the timepiece beneath the bodice of my dress, and without access to my anchors for the Light or the Dark, all I have are my hands. I scratch at his back, his face, his arms, but he’s made of stone. He barely reacts before dropping me into the coffin.
Before I can move, my wrists are in his grasp—so similar to the way Lonan restrained me. One hand holding both of mine, crossed over my chest like a corpse in repose. I can’t move. Galvin leans close to my face so that he consumes my field of vision, eyes now completely consumed by gleaming, pearlescent white.
“I know it’s a dismal sanctuary, darling. If I had another way to ensure your safety, I’d use it.” I gnash my teeth at him and miss his face as he jerks back. He smiles, revealing two elongated canines jutting to points sharp as my scythe. “Comfort yourself this way, Vesper. Love is a kind of death.”
And he slams the lid of the coffin over me. In the distance, the clock-tower bell rings.
Two Hours Till Midnight
LONAN
It’s always been about the girl. And now she’s gone.
